On Apples, Bananas and Receptacles: The power of a beautiful moustache

Tonight I engaged in the best banter I have ever had the pleasure of participating in. The thing about it was that it was completely random. I scarcely knew what Ellie was talking about. But that didn’t detract from the quality of the conversation. 

Ellie: What’s in your rucksack apart from books?

Ellie: What makes an apple an apple?

Afam: I’ve got rocks in my sack

Afam: An apple’s never really an apple

   An apple’s only a receptacle

   But in all honesty it might as well be a banana.

This begs the question, what’s the difference between an apple and a banana? If you thought that I was about tell you then you thought wrong. I’m no philosopher. It isn’t my place to wax lyrical about these things. This makes me yearn for the true language. The language of the soul. It’s a language without words, and as you might have guessed it’s the most difficult to understand. Unlike all other languages if the both of you aren’t on the same page then it’s immediately obvious. If you aren’t on the same page it is impossible to communicate. It’s a sort of empathy I suppose... that you can look at someone and know exactly what they’re thinking, or even feeling at that point in time. It’s funny how it happens. Even strangers can’t seem to help themselves. It happened to me today. 

I was in the library being a good student. Minding my business, making notes with musical precision. The world was at my mercy at that time. The way it usually is when you’re extremely busy. You’re so engrossed in what you’re doing that it gains some sort of metaphysical importance. You feel that if you stopped, you’d be doing the world a huge disservice. Any one that threatens this delicate balance of productivity immediately becomes an enemy. It’s almost a spiritual thing. Anyway i was in the throes of this when a peal of laughter reached my inner bustle. Like a trooper I batted it aside. I had only just got to that special place. The place that let’s you write 1000 words of quality material an hour, the place that makes it possible to cram anything and I wasn’t going to give it up. 


It came like waves of music. Like a piano trill, but one that was played on the higher octaves. It wasn’t offensive enough for me to slam down the iron walls of concentration. the sort that you reserve for drunken fools on the train. The problem with this laugh was that it seemed to gain traction. Like the same series of notes being played over and over again but each time an extra musician was added. After what seemed like ages in my head (probably less than a minute in real world time) I looked up. 

I should have known that I was doomed then and there. Her head was thrown back, her neck stretched to it’s full length. I didn’t know where my eyes should rest. Her hair, her eyes, her lips, her mustache, all perfect. Even more captivating was the wild abandon she exuded. The concentration that up until a moment ago had been reserved for macro economics shifted entirely to her. I didn’t care that I stared. It felt important that I should know her face. The way her lips turned up when she smiled, the way her eyes danced in the light, the dark shade of her hair.. I was completely lost. She was my siren and I was her drowning sailor. I looked to my left in disbelief trying to break the spell she’d placed on me. I saw another victim of her charms. Open mouthed and speechless. He instinctively looked at me. In that moment we understood each other. We had been trapped. It had only taken each of us a second to fall in love with her, and we would never forget it. As long as we had the memory of her we would fall in love with her a million times over. Those three minutes would become an eternity.

Happy Days,

Afam.